Stormwater Services

Operating


Engineering and Transportation Services
Stormwater Services

What we do

Engineering and Transportation Services plan, design and manage the construction and rehabilitation of essential municipal services such as roads, watermains, sewers, active transportation facilities and other infrastructure. We also conduct engineering reviews for development applications (e.g. subdivisions) to ensure growth projects meet City standards.

This team manages and delivers on a significant capital project portfolio for a variety of engineering disciplines including environmental, stormwater, water, wastewater, and transportation.

One of this department’s mandates is to manage traffic operations including traffic signals, plan for the city’s future transportation needs and implement improvements to existing transportation infrastructure, which includes road safety initiatives and providing parking services in downtown Guelph.

The City’s corporate asset management and project management programs are also administered through this department.

Why we do it

Engineering and Transportation Services completes work that is essential to the health and prosperity of the city and the environment. We contribute to Powering our Future by ensuring municipal services are properly designed and constructed to support growth. Our contributions to the Sustaining our Future priority includes remediating contaminated sites and protecting the environment through design and review. Planning and building the city’s transportation network is essential to Navigating our Future. We deliver excellent customer service in parking, stormwater, development, and crossing guard services as part of the Working Together for our Future strategic priority. And we complement all the work done in the Building our Future priority by ensuring assets provide acceptable levels of service to the community.

2021 to 2024+ initiatives

  • Provide development engineering review services to support city growth.
  • Complete the Clair Maltby Master Environmental Servicing Plan, the Stormwater Management Master Plan, and the Water/Wastewater Servicing Master Plan.
  • Manage the administration of the stormwater service fee, including updating the financial model and implementing the associated capital program.

Budget details

Operating budget—Revenues and expenses

2021 budget impacts

$914,800 or 11.6% increase in budgeted expenses and revenues due to:

  • $914,000 increase in Stormwater revenue mainly due to Council approved $0.60 increase in fees; this is the final year of the five-year phase-in to move towards a sustainable funding target. The stormwater funding model will be updated in 2021.
  • $108,900 increase in long-term debt costs (from 2016 debenture) offset through transfer from capital reserve due to a reallocation from corporate general to stormwater.
  • $799,940 increase in transfer to capital reserves to address long-term infrastructure sustainable capital funding strategy.
  • $175,470 increase in transfer to contingency reserve to reach increase balance to target levels.

2022 to 2024 budget impacts

$2,649,000 increase in operating budget expense and revenue from 2022 to 2024 due to:

  • Revenue increase due to rate forecasted rate increases of 9.4%, 8.6% and 7.9% in each of the three years.
  • The addition of a project manager in 2022 funded from capital transfers in order to execute the growing capital plan requirements.
  • The increasing transfer to the Stormwater Capital Reserve Fund to fund Stormwater capital infrastructure renewal projects with the goal of reaching sustainable capital funding and reducing the infrastructure backlog over time.
  • The net budget impact is zero over the three years due to the user rate funded model.